Jacques Hamel, 85, a Beloved French Priest, Killed in His Church

Like many people who enjoy their work, the Rev. Jacques Hamel did not want to stop. At 85, he was well past retirement age, but he kept in shape and kept on going — baptizing infants, celebrating Mass and tending to parishioners in St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray, the working-class town in Normandy where he had spent much of his life.

“He could have retired at 75 years old, but seeing how few priests were around he decided to stay and work, to continue to be of service to people, up until it all ended, tragically,” the Rev. Auguste Moanda-Phuati, the parish priest of the Église St.-Étienne, where Father Hamel worked as an auxiliary priest, said in a phone interview. “He was loved by all. He was a little like a grandfather. We were happy when he was around and worried when we hadn’t seen him in a while.”

Father Hamel was celebrating Mass on Tuesday morning when two men with knives entered the small church and slit his throat, an attack that horrified people across France and the world. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the two assailants — who were shot dead by the police — were “soldiers” retaliating against the United States-led coalition fighting the group in Iraq and Syria.

St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class suburb of the cathedral city of Rouen, filled with low brick buildings, was plunged into grief on Tuesday.

Speaking in front of the town hall on late Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Hubert Wulfranc trembled and had trouble getting his words out.

“A brutal act of barbarism has taken away our priest and gravely wounded a parishioner,” he said, after meeting with President François Hollande and other officials who raced to the town after the attack. “I told the president of the republic that it was absolutely necessary that this doesn’t happen again. Let us be the last to cry.”

At the end of his brief statement, the mayor broke down in tears.

Jean Baya, a plumber who knew Father Hamel well, was one of many parishioners who recalled the priest’s dedication. “He was just so helpful,” Mr. Baya said. “It really hurts me that he’s gone. He came to the house after I lost a child.”

Pope Francis condemned the attack, and the archbishop of Rouen, Dominique Lebrun, rushed back home from a global gathering of Catholic youth in Krakow, Poland, to comfort his parishioners. A memorial Mass was held on Tuesday night for Father Hamel at Rouen Cathedral, a Gothic landmark consecrated nearly a millennium ago.

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Two men armed with knives stormed a church in the northern French town of St.-Étienne-Du-Rouvray on Tuesday. They took several hostages and killed an 85-year-old priest, the Rev. Jacques Hamel, as Mass was ending.Published OnJuly 26, 2016CreditImage by Francois Mori/Associated Press

The Rev. Alexandre Joly, a priest from a nearby parish, expressed horror at the killing of Father Hamel. “It’s the moment when the priest is giving this act of love, that he is killed,” Father Joly said. “It’s incomprehensible.” He described Father Hamel as “very kind” and “someone whom no one could hate.”

The Rev. Philippe Maheut, the vicar general of the archdiocese of Rouen, said the attack was “as though lightning has hit us.”

Speaking in front of the town hall, Father Maheut said of Father Hamel: “He was joyous, sometimes anxious, like those who want everything to be done well. He was a humble, gentle person. He came here to be of service. What really impressed people was that, at that age, he still had the will to serve. He was fully engaged with the community, and very much appreciated. People appreciated his humility.”

Father Maheut added, “One can’t understand these things.”

Another priest in the Rouen archdiocese, the Rev. Aimé-Rémi Mputu Amba, told the newspaper Le Figaro: “Even in his old age, he was still just as invested with the parish life. We used to joke around and tell him ‘Jacques, you’re doing too much! It’s high time you retire!’ And he would always laugh it off and say, ‘Have you ever met a retired priest? I’ll work until my last breath.’”

Father Mputu Amba added: “To leave us just as he was celebrating Mass must have been some kind of blessing for him, despite the tragic circumstances.”

Born in Darnétal, about five miles from St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray, on Nov. 30, 1930, Father Hamel was ordained on June 30, 1958, according to a biography supplied by the archdiocese. He was named a vicar at the St.-Antoine church in Le Petit-Quevilly in 1958, a vicar at the Notre-Dame de Lourdes church in Sotteville-lès-Rouen in 1967, a parish priest at St.-Pierre-lès-Elbeuf in 1975 and a parish priest in Cléon in 1988. He joined the church at St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray in 2000 and assumed his role as the parish’s auxiliary priest in 2005.

“He was a very easygoing man,” said Father Moanda-Phuati, the parish priest at St.-Étienne-du-Rouvray. “He led a simple life, and that was also the secret to his good health and his strength. He was 85 years old, but he was as solid as a priest in his 50s.”

Father Hamel had at least two sisters, one who lives nearby and another farther north in France. “During his vacation, he used to go see them. He loved his family,” Father Moanda-Phuati said. “He was very close to them.”

Father Moanda-Phuati, who rushed back to the parish on Tuesday from a vacation, said the thought that “it could have been me” had crossed his mind. “We had agreed that I would go away this month, and he would go away next month,” he said. “He was about to go on vacation.”

Of Father Hamel’s beliefs, Father Moanda-Phuati said: “He was very balanced when it came to the evolution of the church, not too traditional, but not too permissive either. He welcomed all the changes made by the pope. His open-mindedness made him someone who wasn’t afraid of change.”